


And the will therein lieth, which dieth not.

by poisonandperfection



Category: LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: Gen, Ligeia AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:11:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3904288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonandperfection/pseuds/poisonandperfection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the death of Herbert West, his partner struggles to cope-- but death is not what it seems, particularly for Herbert West. <br/>An epilogue based on Poe's Ligeia. </p>
<p>  <em>Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	And the will therein lieth, which dieth not.

Daniel's life could not be the same without West's. The work, he began from scratch-- much of it was seized by the police. He continued to operate his practice, but it was diminished by the scandal and further declined with his own dissipation into the heavy use of morphine. He took on a new partner, a younger man named Trevanion. Dr. Trevanion was, perhaps, attracted by the connection to West, though they never spoke of him. Daniel refused to speak of West at all, and rarely spoke to Trevanion. Trevanion seemed to have a quiet detestation for Daniel's habits and his person, but it was reciprocated tenfold by Daniel, who was incapable of stripping the disappointed memory of his former partner from every interaction. No quantity of morphine could erase the disparity between the tall, dark-haired Trevanion and the slim, pale figure of Herbert West, forever impressed upon his mind. No quantity of the drug could erase West from his mind forever, either, though his doses steadily increased and he made no attempt whatsoever to free himself from the thrall of it. He was grieving. His grief, it seemed, would never end.

He noticed Dr. Trevanion's growing paranoia before he noticed them-- perhaps the morphine had dulled his vision. The obsessive checking of the locks, the constant backward glances, it all reminded Daniel vividly of West's final year, and perhaps he was all the harder on Trevanion because of it. He insisted that he had seen nothing of their strange and phantom followers in crowds, had never noticed some monster in masquerade watching them through human eyes on street corners. He denied them thoroughly, and then he began to see them, too.

A silent, pale face, unmoving in a crowd. A glimmer of dead eyes in the half-dark, on a street corner. Heavy steps that dogged them on the street, when there was no one to be seen. He kept silent to Trevanion, let the man's paranoia run its course without him. He knew these creatures, and had nearly hoped, for a year and a half, that they would return for him as they had for West.

He took to carrying a gun, to sitting up late in the basement laboratory, waiting, the morphine running sluggishly through his veins and dulling his fear. He rarely saw Trevanion, in those days. Trevanion's fear and Daniel's calm made each unbearable to the other.

In the end it was the screaming that woke him.

He woke sluggishly, drugged and bewildered, thinking only of West. He fumbled for his gun and his robe and hurried down the stairs, only remembering Trevanion when he saw him, on the floor. His face was twisted into a silent scream. As Daniel watched in horror, a hulking creature picked him up by the waist and carried him, with superhuman calm, through the hole in the basement wall and into the crypt. Daniel cried out and flung himself after the creature in a blind rage.

But there were more, many more, and Daniel was overcome in an instant, and struck a terrible blow to the head that rendered him utterly unconscious. When he awoke, the bricks had been reassembled, and no trace of Trevanion remained. He tried, for a moment, to blame it on a morphine-induced dream, but the lump on the back of his head proved otherwise. Trevanion was nowhere in the house.

Daniel sat in the basement, with his head in his hands, and wondered how he could have been so stupid. His punishment was never to die.

Just then, there was a small, unmistakeable sound from behind the wall. He straightened, but there were no further sounds, and he slumped again. Then came another, a shuffle and a thump. He leapt to his feet and pressed his ear against the wall, but there was perfect silence as long minutes dragged on. As he stepped away again, he thought he heard a faint voice, and hurriedly returned to his post. Nothing. It could have all been an addled dream from the morphine, of course, and he cursed himself for taking so much. The pattern continued-- a silence so long he would doubt his own hearing, and then another sound, muffled but clear. He tore at the bricks, shouted and pounded on the wall, but to no avail. The night was nearly over when it happened. A sound, a shower of dust. Daniel froze, disbelieving his own eyes as the bricks were plucked smoothly away by dead hands, and in the hole into which Trevanion had vanished stood another man, smiling and alive.

Daniel's knees gave way, and he fell weakly, reaching for the dream, the vision. "Herbert!" he cried, astonished.


End file.
